Broodmother

Broodmothers were powerful, intelligent queens free of the severe limits on mental ability that bound the lesser queens, tasked by the Queen of Blades to guard and lead the various broods of the zerg Swarm. Sarah Kerrigan created them after the Brood War to replace the cerebrates, which were tainted by their ties to the Overmind and would inevitably try to create a new one, and she designed them so that the Swarm could function even if she herself were killed.

Creation and purpose#

Following the Brood War, the Queen of Blades removed the cerebrates from the Swarm because their ties to the Overmind made them certain to try to create a new one if none existed. To fill the role the cerebrates had held, Kerrigan created the intelligent broodmothers, some, if not all, of them former queens elevated to the new status. The aim was to ensure the Swarm could endure even if Kerrigan died, a marked change from her attitude during the Brood War. The broodmothers were in use by 2501, and Zagara was the first to be created.

Compared to ordinary queens, broodmothers carried more protective bone armor around their skulls, thickened and spread outward to either side like an umbrella, which made them almost impervious to attack from above, with horns running along the back of the skull and spikes at the upper knees. Their arms were more dextrous and nimble than those of regular queens. The broodmother template allowed complex problem solving, learning, the command of broods, and the holding of multiple focuses at once, but extraneous brain matter was kept to a minimum, both because extra matter demanded extra energy and because it bred greater independence, which conflicted with the imperative that the zerg must never threaten the leader of the Swarm.

Independence and its risks#

A broodmother's area of psionic control had a limited range. On the borders between the control radii of two broodmothers the connection to the hive mind grew weaker, and the zerg there often began to exhibit feral tendencies, a phenomenon called a balance crossing where broods could run without the control of any higher will. The individuals of the new breed were stronger, more evolved, and far more independent than the cerebrates, able to survive both the loss of their creator and the fragmentation of the Swarm. Should the Queen fall, the broodmothers were expected to war among themselves until the strongest came to rule.

To bind them to her, Kerrigan imprinted the broodmothers with overriding directives that made them pursue evolution and respect strength, which ensured their loyalty to her as the strongest while still permitting them their own personalities, ambitions, and independent action. Kerrigan told them to be strong, to fight, to conquer, and that the zerg led by force of will, believing the Swarm was always stronger when it had to strive against something. Yet the same independence was a notable fault: when Kerrigan was defeated and deinfested at Char and so demonstrated weakness, she lost the broodmothers' allegiance.

Fragmentation and the splintered Swarm#

Because no single broodmother had the psionic capacity to control the entire Swarm, Kerrigan's deinfestation caused the Swarm to fragment, each broodmother taking her own brood and dispersing into the Koprulu Sector, with infighting breaking out as they vied for control. Kerrigan first encountered the broodmother Naktul on Phaeton, who recognized Kerrigan as her queen and reluctantly offered help. Zagara remained on Char to retake the planet but failed, her brood suffering immense casualties, while the broodmother Nafash relocated to Kaldir and was eventually killed by the protoss despite her advanced tactics and fortified fallback points.

When Kerrigan returned to Char, Zagara refused to recognize her and waged war, but was quickly overwhelmed; Kerrigan spared her after Zagara reminded her of her own teachings, and had Abathur enhance her so she would learn vision and tactics. Learning that Nafash had created aggressive new strains, Kerrigan went to Kaldir to visit her but found only feral zerg and the protoss, and came upon Nafash's corpse, vowing revenge. To stop the protoss from warning the Golden Armada, Kerrigan created a new broodmother, Niadra, and gave her the objective of slaughtering all the protoss aboard their ship. Niadra succeeded, but by the time she finished she was too far away to reach Kerrigan, and with no other choice she resolved to go on carrying out the directive she had been given.

Return and the office of Overqueen#

After Kerrigan restored her powers at Zerus, the broodmothers sensed her renewed strength and asked to rejoin the Swarm, acknowledging her once more as their queen. Kerrigan let them return by setting them to destroy various Dominion-held planets, which they did, and apart from Niadra all the broodmothers rejoined her. During Kerrigan's search for Jim Raynor the broodmothers disliked working alongside terrans and asked permission to destroy the Hyperion once those aboard were no longer useful, but at Kerrigan's command Izsha told them the terrans were not to be harmed. When Abathur led Kerrigan to Cavir to recover the lurker strain, she sent the broodmother Kilysa to extract the essence of a lurker den while the lurkers defended it from feral zerg, and as the Swarm advanced on Korhal she had Kilysa divert her leviathans to stop converging Dominion reinforcements.

After the End War and Kerrigan's departure, Zagara created the position of Overqueen, the leading broodmother of the entire Swarm, and during her reign the broodmothers continued to serve her and fill their command roles. Following the One-Day War, Zagara sensed Niadra and her brood and realized they threatened the peace she had built with the terrans and protoss. Niadra did not answer to Zagara and remained loyal to Kerrigan's last known directive to kill the protoss; years after the End War she and her brood left the Daelaam Ark they had overrun, settled on an abandoned terran base on the planet Adena, and drew the Terran Dominion and the Daelaam into conflict. The known broodmothers included Kilysa, Nafash, Naktul, Niadra, Ryloth, Rokarr, and Zagara. After the death of the Overmind, Abathur had altered the essences of the ordinary queens to suppress their flight in favor of tending the hive, but this change never extended to the broodmothers, who kept their wings and the power of flight.